Monday, 23 June 2008

I think it must be one of the greatet wonders of the world....one that no philosopher has quite managed to pin down....no not 'what came first the chicken or the egg!!'...but simply why is there a difference in the branding of the Milky Way and the Mars bar in the US and UK!? Why!? Someone answer me that!!

The bar came in a pretty standard 49.9g serving...it wasnt the most filling bar ever due to the lightness of the nougat but I was neither left really wanting more. On the wrapper were the words 'Rich, Dark Chocolate', 'Golden Caramel' and 'Vanilla Nougat' ...the packaging was nice in design though it was the look of bar itself that I particularly liked...the colours of the dark chocolate, white nougat and golden caramel (which you can see in the cross section above!) looked pretty appertising - this coupled with a fairly nice dark cocoa aroma made for a pretty enticing proposition.

The outside coating of dark chocolate was suprisingly thick, much more so than in any Mars/Milky Way bar I had consumed before. Its flavour wasnt too bad - it was certiainly richer and more bitter than the standard milk chocolate but it lacked the depth of flavour compared to the higher end dark chocolate brands. Its texture was also slightly disappointing...it didnt quite melt in the mouth the same way as other Mars chocolate does...it melted extremely slowly and into a grainy feeling constituants.

Much like in similar bars the nougat and caramel layers added a nice contrast in textures. The nougat was quite light and not overly chewy whilst the caramel was smooth and had just about the right dexterity. As you can see in the cross section above the caramel was pretty plentiful in proportion - it had a nice buttery flavour and wasnt overly sweet. Unfortunately I found the nougat to be slightly lacking in flavour...on pack it was described as vanilla flavoured but I could detect nothing more than a slight sweet taste...it hardly ruined the taste of the bar but it did mean that flavourwise it was pretty dull and unexciting.

Overall this isnt a bad variation of a great original but it was one that did seem to pass me by a bit. The main selling point of the bar is the variation of the chocolate - with the use of Dark chocolate instead of milk...personally I just dont think it worked that well here. The dark chocolate lacked the flavour and texture credentials of other higher quality dark chocolate...thats not to say it was bad though...it just wasnt great. The type of nougat also did the bar no favours...sure it made the bar pretty to look at but in truth it was devoid of flavour. I would recommend this to Mars/Milky Way fans if only to try out a different variation...I cant promise you wont be pining for the original bars though.